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A WGVU initiative in partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation using on-air programs and community events to explore issues of inclusion and equity.

Mayor Bliss calls for respect of minorities post-election

Rosalynn Bliss
Hilary Farrell
/
WGVU

Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss posted a statement Sunday night expressing concern for post-election hostilities towards vulnerable groups and calling to think of children.

“Even though there’s a ton of divisiveness right now in our country, we don’t need to allow that here in our own community. And we need to be an example to say, ‘that’s not OK.’

That’s Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss reiterating the call she made in her Facebook post Sunday night. The statement is a response to reports she says she received from city residents who were “subjected to hateful, racist, sexist, and/or homophobic comments.” Comments, she says were made directly at them or “worse, to their children.”

“We’re an example to every single child in this community and we need to model what it means to be a respectful, kind, inclusive community.

There have been instances across the state and the nation of attacks on minorities following the elections. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports over 200 in the past six days alone. In Michigan, students at DeWitt Junior High School formed a wall to block minorities, police in Ann Arbor reported that a woman was forced to remove her hijab after a man threatened to light it on fire, and more recently, a family in the thumb region of the state, Koylton Township, had vulgar, anti-Mexican graffiti and a hanged effigy defacing their home.

“We need to show that we are a community that is welcoming, and inclusive, and tolerant, and kind.”

*For a more on what constitutes the crime of Ethnic intimidation and stories from those who have survived them, keep listening to WGVU. 

Mariano Avila is WGVU's inclusion reporter. He has made a career of bringing voices from the margins to those who need to hear them. Over the course of his career, Mariano has written for major papers in English and Spanish, published in magazines, worked in broadcast, and produced short films, commercials, and nonprofit campaigns. He also briefly served at a foreign consulate, organized for international human rights efforts and has done considerable work connecting marginalized people to religious, educational, and nonprofit institutions through the power of story.
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